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IDE to SD Card adapter for older PCs?

RaptorZX3 said:
Yes but there are maybe some models that are not compatible with DOS or something, so it would be good to redirect me to one someone bought here and can tell me if it work in DOS, and i assume it would work even without drivers.
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I got all of mine from eBay. Unlike SD adapters, there is no complex logic needed, making them very cheap. They cost just a few dollars.

What type do you want? 1 or 2 CF cards per IDE channel? Plug in straight into the motherboard, plug onto IDE ribbon cable? Do you want it accessible from the back of the PC? From the front?

Then I can link you one.

One issue to point out is that often new CF cards don't want to boot. FDISK / MBR fixes this for some reason...
 
Don't forget that these need a small floppy power connector. I think it's called Berg. Anyway, if you don't have an extra in the case you may need a Molex to Berg adapter. They're cheap and common.
 
Ole Juul said:
Don't forget that these need a small floppy power connector. I think it's called Berg. Anyway, if you don't have an extra in the case you may need a Molex to Berg adapter. They're cheap and common.
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That's a good point! It has to reach to the back of the computer.

On eBay you can find several adapters, splitters and extensions. I once just ordered a few of each model and now I'm set for every situation :)
 
yes i do have those here. it'll be nice to have a cdrom, 5.25" drive and 3.5" drive in this computer, minus the sound and high % of breakdown from those old HDDs.
 
i'm not worried about length, this AT case is an horizontal one, and strangely the IDE connectors are right under the power supply, so...yes i do have enough cable length.
 
one more question...

what do i write in the BIOS settings for the hard disk (cylinders, LZ, Buffer, etc...), when i use a IDE-CompactFlash adapter like this?
 
RaptorZX3 said:
one more question...

what do i write in the BIOS settings for the hard disk (cylinders, LZ, Buffer, etc...), when i use a IDE-CompactFlash adapter like this?
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I usually first connect the card to a modern pc, let the BIOS detect it and then connect it to the old pc and enter the values in BIOS.

A potentially problematic situation though is when trying to do this on older machines where those values are NOT valid for that system's BIOS (usually machines that couldn't address drives more than 512MB's). I've run into occasions where the old machine's BIOS couldn't accept all the digits of eg. the cylinders. In this case the only thing I thought of and has worked flawlessly since is to install a Dynamic Drive Overlay (DDO). Keep in mind that this approach ruins the advantage of being able to remove the card, connect it to a modern machine and simply copy some files to it. If anybody else has a different idea on how to deal with this case, I'd like to hear it also!
 
then i'll try this on a Pentium1 board i have here, once i have the adapter and 256mb or 512mb CompactFlash card. I heard some (later) 486 boards do have auto-detection for HDDs.
 
I use an SD to IDE adapter which I bought on AliExpress. I works OK on most PCs I have tried it. I remember it works plugged to an XT-IDE v2 card in a 286 and 386 PC, and plugged directly to the IDE connector of a Socket 7 board. But it doesn't work on a 486 board. I think it depends on the chipset. It supports SD and SDHC cards, and it needs a floppy-type power connector, like CF to IDE and SATA to IDE adapters. BIOS with autodetection feature can autodetect the plugged SD cards. For BIOS without this feature I do like someone told in this thread: I let the socket 7 board autodetect it, and I copy the parameters.
 
the SD to IDE adapter have 1 or more chips on the board, when the CompactFlash to IDE don't have this. I heard the CompactFlash format is a smaller version of IDE, so this is why it's relatively simple to make...
 
And mine has two chips, but that's not a problem for me. BTW, from my previous post I have tried it successfully in 2 more boards: A Pentium III board and a 486 board (using a floppy/IDE controller).
 
yes but old 486 PCs don't have auto-detect, my PB Legend 125 doesn't at least, i think the IDE hard-disk auto-detect got in at the time of the 486, some older systems doesn't have it, and newer ones does. This PB Legend 20CD i had got auto-detect (but it had a big problem for resetting the HDD setting everytime it reboot, so everytime i try to save BIOS setting, something happened on the board and it's not the battery, it was something else, at least i took out everything i could and kept the case, maybe i'll get something else to put in it)
 
All my 386 boards auto detect CF cards. But that doesn't help you and I never had to solve this issue so maybe someone else can help out?
 
i guess it's just a matter of the board, if it have auto-detect or not. my Legend 125 doesn't, but the dead 20CD had this (but IDE ports weren't functioning properly)
 
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